Beautiful Cruel World
by Beckon
Summary: "Please, Myra, just... forget about the plan, okay? Forget about everything right now and focus on yourself. Focus on finding Sebastian first. He's our key to finishing what we started here." [TEW2/Main Story!AU] [Will contain spoilers]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Give me... a Husband-Wife team.**

* * *

 _"Myra? Myra, are you there?"_

Myra groaned softly at the faint voice that just barely pushed through her semi-conscious mind, just barely pulling her out of her own dark subconscious. It felt like all five of her senses had gone out the window, only to be violently pulled back in in no particular order. She could barely hear, she could barely feel; she could hardly think, let alone hold a thought for more than just a few fleeting seconds. And given the throbbing pain in her head, the persistent thundering in her skull, she wasn't even going to attempt to open her eyes.

Not for now at least.

There was the sound of something crackling; the muffled sound of a voice getting further and further away, just barely audible to her deaf hearing.

One hand reached out towards the sound, using what little strength she could muster up in order to do so; she was desperate to make sense of the sound, of the voice.

Myra could feel the cold floor underneath her fingertips now as they stumbled in a valiant effort to find the source of noise, to find out just what exactly was saying her name. It felt like it had been so long since she heard someone else saying her name, someone other than herself. Perhaps someone who wasn't yelling it in order to regain their identity, who wasn't yelling it in order to make themselves real again.

There was a small piece of her brain that told her exactly what she was looking for, what she was searching for. And while Myra wasn't sure just how long that thought would last given her crippled mentality at the moment, she kept the word repeating over and over again in her head. She hoped that it would stick around long enough to help her find what it was that she needed to find.

A communicator.

A radio.

 _"Come on, Myra, I know I heard you... Please, just- just pick up, would you?"_

The voice, as far away as it still sounded, was becoming desperate now.

Groaning again, Myra forced her body to roll forward, moving it with her outstretched arm in order to get the most reach out of it from fingertips to shoulder. And fingers continued to stumble around in several failed search attempts as she dragged them along the smooth tile beneath her. Two slow sweeps though and she felt her fingertips finally make contact with something.

 _"... Where are you?"_

Fingers wrapped themselves around the object, the radio, and slowly dragged it back towards her; no doubt filling the receiver with a soundboard of harsh scraping.

It was surprising just how exhausted she was by a simple task. It left her with sharp pain radiating up and down her arm, which was now tucked closer to her; her fingers almost desperately holding onto the radio at this point, as though knowing firsthand just how desperate she was for a crutch.

Taking a deep breath to level the trembling in her lungs, Myra slowly forced her eyes open, hoping to at least get a good look at the radio in hand. Instead, she only felt regret in the motion as a light source of some kind above her flooded her eyes with a hot pain that seared through to the back of her head. A whimpered hiss escaped through partly clenched teeth as she tucked her head away from the light, using her own body to shield herself from the blinding light source.

It felt like there were fingers digging through her eye sockets, scraping at the inside of her skull.

Dragging in a few extra ragged breaths, Myra tried to re-collect herself as fingers fumbled with the bulky radio in hand. She ran her fingers along the sides of it, turning it over once or twice before she found the large crescent button she was looking for; she pressed the pad of her thumb down on it, opening the communication line from her end.

Despite no previous attempts, she found enough of her voice to force herself to speak with it.

"Juli?"

"Myra? Thank God- _fuck_ \- are you alright?!"

Her senses were slowly coming back to her, slowly returning and helping to pull her back together.

And the feeling of touch, the reawakening of the receptor nerves in her brain made her realize just how cold the floor was underneath her; it made her realize just how biting it felt against her skin, how it had chilled its way through her clothing with ease.

Myra shivered, feeling the near chattering of her teeth at the sudden loss of body heat. She turned her body just enough to wedge her right arm underneath it and slowly pushed herself up; she felt the trembling in her limbs at the slightest forced use of strength. There was barely much strength left in her to straighten her arm out, to get herself resting on her hip instead.

But it was enough to get her away from the chilling floor, just enough to give herself some comfort.

"How long has it been?" Myra questioned, struggling to form the question in her head first; it felt like she had to force out each word like it was a statement on its own. She could hear the near raggedness of her voice and was almost convinced that it wasn't her own. It sounded so far away, like she was shouting at herself from the far end of a tunnel. "How long since you last heard from me?"

A heavy sigh on the other end of the radio seemed to give her an answer.

Or at least, it prepared her for one.

"Three days."

Three days?

 _Christ._

"STEM's been without a Core for three days?" Myra whispered, keeping her head low still to block out the light above her. If she could find the source of it, if she could find the light switch, she could save herself from the pain. But she could just barely get to where she was sitting up now, she wasn't confident that she could force herself to go further. Not right now at least. "Previous calculations and predictions have stated that STEM cannot and should not exceed thirty-six hours without a Core."

Her head was throbbing and she couldn't so much as risk opening her eyes.

And yet she could still recall and recount previous test runs for STEM.

Good to know her priorities were still right with Mobius.

"STEM's been without a Core for a week now," Kidman corrected.

It wasn't so much the revelation that STEM had gone on without a Core for so long, that STEM was still somewhat functional despite having nothing to be harnessed to that surprised and shocked her.

It was the fact that she herself had been in here for a week and had no recollection of the time passed.

"What?" Myra questioned in disbelief. "That's not possible. We have fail-safes in place for that kind of fallout- we _should_ anyways. What are the damages? What's the state of Union right now? How much of it have we lost?"

Part of her hated that she was acting out on her Mobius persona, but right now it was the only thing that she could cling to.

The only thing that gave her something to focus on, that gave her subconscious something to hold to.

(As of right now, it was acting like a core for herself.)

"Over eighty-percent of it," Kidman answered.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

An eighty-percent loss would affect over three hundred patients and over three years worth of work.

And now all of it was gone in just a week's time?

As powerful as STEM was, it was a frail beast.

Shifting her weight from her hip to her knees, Myra freed her propped arm just enough to move it out from underneath her. She reached up and gingerly pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand- hoping that the gesture would help ease the tension behind her eyes. It didn't do much but the motion granted her enough of a placebo effect to look past the hollow throbbing.

"Did the rollback system not work?" Myra questioned.

"No. Due to the sudden disconnect of the Core, our back-up files got corrupted," Kidman spoke. "The programmers have been running recovery functions on them but right now the prognosis isn't looking good in our favor. It's predicted that if we try to run them, we'll overload the system, and it'll go into auto-shutdown. We'll lose everything at that point."

Myra forced herself to make the first attempt to get to her feet, only to feel the shakiness in her legs force her to postpone the attempt. She could feel a sense of nausea settling into the pit of her stomach already and didn't bother to question whether it was coming from the headache that was persistently hounding her at the moment.

Swallowing down the hint of bile at the back of her throat, Myra tried once more to get to her feet.

It was a shaky attempt and she felt her balance give out about halfway up.

But she found her support on a nearby wall that she practically stumbled and fell into, hitting it hard with her right shoulder. It stung like hell with the weight of her body coming down on her shoulder, but she used the wall as leverage to get her feet underneath her again. Pushing up, Myra half-dragged her shoulder against the wall until she was upright once more.

The more prominent stinging in her eyes reminded her of how vulnerable they still were to the light.

Prompting her fingers to reach out once more and search along the wall for the necessary light switch.

She got damn lucky and found it close by- and promptly switched it off.

Almost immediately, Myra felt a sense of relief wash over her as the pain in her eyes dulled considerably, giving her some relief from part of her suffered agony.

Allowing her just one moment to forget about it.

"Myra, do you... do you not see the destruction?"

"Juli, I can't guarantee anything of what I've seen in here," Myra replied, as she slowly began dragging herself along the wall, feeling around for her environment. She tested opening her eyes once more and found that the experience wasn't as agonizing the second time around. The lack of light in the room was a relief but it left her eyes struggling to adapt to the darkness now.

She managed to see enough to maneuver herself along the wall, unsure if her body could withstand supporting its own weight at the moment. Running her hand along the wall, she felt it give into a corner, which she blindly followed, and just about ran into a large storage crate that resided around the bend. She could see the white finish, the red Mobius symbol painted on top, but it was the small green light that gave it away.

She didn't care much for what was inside of it though.

The supplies would do her little good in this condition.

Instead, Myra eased herself down onto the crate, taking the weight and pressure off of her legs, giving herself a chance to rest. Keeping her back to the wall, she slowly lifted her legs onto the crate with her and pulled them to her chest, giving herself a moment to recollect.

"I don't even know what's going on with me... I can't even think straight right now," Myra whispered, hearing the exhaustion in her voice now.

"Are you alright? Where are you right now?"

She hadn't even bothered to question that herself, not even when she recognized the Mobius standard supply crate underneath her. Up until now, Myra hadn't questioned anything at all- which was unlike her.

Blinking a few times to ease the tension behind her eyes, Myra looked around the dark room to get an idea of where she was. And she didn't have to look far to know that she was in the Marrow. The room itself didn't matter so much to her, they all felt the same after all. These Mobius supply rooms were as basic as they could be, providing little furniture and little comfort; they were never intended to be anything other than what they were designed for.

They were meant for work, for a constant cycle of going in and out and coming back in again.

Still, Myra tried to look for what sector she was in, which exit she was closest to, but the room itself gave no distinguishing marks. And right now she was in no condition to go looking for one.

What she did see was how much of a mess the room had been made out to be, certainly nothing that was up to code.

Everything was thrown around, kicked and scattered about, as though someone had been desperately looking for something.

Maybe a report or a keycard- maybe even a weapon.

Maybe a way out.

...

And like someone flipping on a switch, Myra felt a rush of memories come at her.

A rush of things she didn't want to see, that she didn't want to remember.

She had seen Union, she had experienced it during its gradual collapse after the thirty-six hour mark.

She had seen the faces of Union; the faces of the newly branded Lost, twisted in agony, in confusion.

She had seen their mutilated forms, their inevitable decay into animalistic hierarchies.

She felt the weight of their terror, the weight of their agony on her shoulders.

She had seen their heads filled with white tendrils, erratic and whipping at the slightest hint of damage, at the slightest hint of danger.

And Myra thought of the white substance that manifested itself over her own skin, eating at her body, at her mind the same way it was doing to them. And it was from that possessed state of mind that she woke up here in agony, in confusion over what was going on. Maybe it was her own exhaustion that had short-circuited the memory, or maybe it was her mind reflexively trying to save itself by cutting out the bad memories.

Even down here, tucked away in the halls of the Marrow, Myra could could hear, damn near feel the wreckage of Union above and all around her now. She could feel the pressure, the tension that was altering the once-stable atmosphere. Once programmed to maintain the perfect weather patterns, the perfect environment, STEM was now eating Union alive- devouring the unsuspecting and defenseless civilians inside of it.

None of them had a chance of surviving in here.

Not now, not like this.

"Oh God," Myra whispered, feeling the throbbing in her head worsen at the sharp recall.

She felt her Mobius persona dissolve away, leaving her exposed.

Leaving her as the person she tried so hard to hide, so hard to forget at times.

"Myra, what is it?" Kidman pressed, and her tone seemed to imply mild panic.

The air had been so damn quiet between them, Myra had almost forgotten about the other woman.

"The Marrow's gone, Juli," Myra started, "and I think it's because of me. No, I know it is. I- I don't know what's going on with me, but I'm turning into one of those creatures. I can't control it, I don't know what's going on with it, but... I must've came down here at some point when I was that _thing_."

Kidman would have no idea what she was talking about.

Mobius was in the dark in regards to STEM, in regards to Union.

All they saw was data collapsing and deleting itself.

They weren't seeing the creatures that were actually manifesting in here.

They weren't seeing their once peaceful townsfolk now cannibalistic and angry.

Mobius would've sent in recovery teams before this stage but unless a direct line of communication was established and maintained, there was no way any information was getting out. And Myra could recall seeing bodies, Mobius personnel, bloodied and mutilated; their hands left either outstretched or clinging to their radios, desperate for just one last emergency call.

Despite Mobius' best attempts at damage control, their agents never stood a chance.

She never should've come down here.

But Myra couldn't control her actions when STEM took her hostage the same way it did the Lost.

But STEM twisted her in a different way from the Lost- manipulating her into some other kind of creature.

A monster who called itself the _Matriarch_.

It dug into her memories, into her subconscious, revealing information that it needed, that _it_ wanted.

And it used her to spread its infection into the bloodstream of Union, poisoning the Marrow.

It was her presence here that had begun to spread panic. It was her presence, her manipulation that took over the security team, the programmers, the science units that Mobius had assigned down here. They controlled Union from the inside; they helped Union grow, they watched it develop into the Utopia it could be.

The Utopia it should've been.

The Mobius personnel were the only ones in STEM who should've been able to resist the calling of the Lost.

But she had taken them by force and had bled them of their identities until they were withered and empty just the same.

She turned the lights off on Mobius.

And she left them in the dark.

"... Union's gone and there's no recovering it," Myra whispered, feeling the surge of memories coming back to her now. A week lost in Union was slowly uprooting itself from where she thought she had forgotten it. It was slowly backtracking, slowly pulling her along, making her remember each and every encounter she had had so far in STEM. But as the memories rolled by, she felt the guilt that once riddled her quickly turn into anger. "And we have Theodore to blame."

She never should have trusted the man but Theodore seemed to believe in what she was saying; he agreed that Mobius' use of her daughter was vile and wrong.

And yet she just played herself right into his trap.

Theodore was hired because he was smooth and charismatic; his words could speak to the soul, they could sway a crowd. He could convince perfect strangers of anything. It was through his published messages and sermons that Mobius had obtained so many willing volunteers for Union to begin with. Theodore pulled in more volunteers than the obviously baited sleep study trap did.

He had been playing her right from the start.

And now they were all suffering for it.

But Myra bet that Theodore was thriving here.

His ego was allowing him to remain conscious, to remain above STEM's influence.

It was making him feel like a God while she was sinking further and further into despair.

"Have you had any luck in finding Lily?" Kidman asked; her tone was careful and soft, as though knowing it was a delicate question to ask.

And Myra felt the hollow pain in her chest ache at it. "No," she answered, "I-I've seen her but she always runs from me. I don't think I'm the person she thinks I am, or I don't look the same to her, I don't know. I'm something different in here and she knows it. Just like the rest of Union, I'm the same as them."

"If you were the same as them, we wouldn't be talking," Kidman reminded. "You're fighting it-"

"Barely," Myra interrupted. "... I imagine this is what Beacon was like for you."

"It's hard to draw comparisons," Kidman replied- and the strained tone in her voice implied enough about the subject.

And Myra knew she had said too much.

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Myra, what's important right now is that you're still alive," Kidman reminded, quick to brush the subject off. "Alright, so... let's try to get things back on track here. Where are we standing with the plan right now?"

It was a rough question.

"I don't know," Myra started, before she pinched the bridge of her nose once more, desperate to keep herself functional at this point. "Alright, uh... alright, so STEM's been without a Core for a week now and everyone in here has been changed into some kind of monster because of it. Lily is nowhere to be found, but asides from the obvious, STEM hasn't been changed yet- which means that Theodore doesn't have her either. It means that she's smart enough to evade capture, which is good."

Christ, she was talking about her own daughter like Lily was some kind of escaped experiment.

"But... Lily runs from me too. STEM's not affecting her due to her ego, which means that it's me who STEM's changing; I'm directly being affected by STEM and because of that Lily doesn't recognize me as her mother."

"Do you know what STEM might be using against you?" Kidman questioned. "Studies from Beacon showed that the patients there were being warped and controlled by their own sense of despair under pressure."

Without a Core, STEM could warp a person based on that person's own mental strength, based on emotional and psychological issues; based on their own ego even.

The first test at Beacon laid out how one's own sense of despair could turn a patient into a twisted version of themselves. And considering how most of the patients at Beacon had been mentally ill, the STEM versions of themselves mimicked and mocked their illnesses; their torture. STEM warped them with their own weaknesses, forcing them to exist forever as the Haunted.

And now the failing project of Union had twisted Mobius' own test subjects into the Lost, confusing and manipulating them by merging two different forms of their own identity; their real identity outside of STEM and the one that Mobius had created for them.

Each title accurately portrayed how the victims fell into STEM's hierarchy.

Of course there were variables to take into account.

STEM's Core before and during the Beacon incident had been Ruvik Victoriano, a mentally-ill man forced worse by his upbringing and his own experimentations. He had been forced into being the Core by Dr. Marcelo Jimenez, as well as by Mobius. But Ruvik had created STEM; he knew how to manipulate it into doing his own bidding. Ruvik had stripped control from the outside and held it in his possession on the inside.

The one downfall to STEM's work.

One should never put a master in the place of their own creation.

But here, within Union, STEM was functioning without a Core, without someone influencing its design.

It was functioning on its own and attempting to correct what it saw as wrong- only to make things worse in the end.

It was stripping people of their identities and warping them to how it saw fit.

And she was no different.

"You're smart, Myra, I know you've got an answer, or at least a theory to this," Kidman continued.

"STEM attacks on a subconscious level, taking advantage of traits sometimes unknown to the victim at the time," Myra started, leaning back against the wall behind her to take the weight off of her shoulders. "I entered STEM with the sole purpose of getting Lily out. And now after Theodore betrayed me, I'm even more focused on getting to her before anyone else can. I can't describe exactly the kind of plight I'm going through right now and I think only someone who's a parent, someone who's a mother can understand it."

Myra had no intentions of making that sound like an undercut comment.

She was going through her thoughts, speaking from her mind; sometimes she didn't have a filter when she did that.

But it was still an important thought to make.

"I think it's obvious that STEM is using my own maternal instincts against me in here. I came into STEM with the sole idea of getting Lily out of it, but... whenever I'm that _thing_ , all I can think of is how safe STEM is instead. How I can protect Lily better in here than I can outside of it. How Mobius can't touch her while she's in STEM, and they can't touch her outside of it lest they lose the whole operation."

It was hard to believe that her own want, her own need for getting Lily out was what was endangering the both of them.

It was her own maternal instincts that were being twisted against her, rotting her into the white-skinned monster that called itself the _Matriarch_ and acted nothing like a mother.

Not like the mother she once was- that she _still_ was.

"I gave up everything for her. I left behind everyone I loved so that I could keep an eye on her, so that I could at least know where she was, so I could at least control that she was safe. So she wouldn't be alone while Mobius kept her locked up in here."

Myra could feel the pain in her head coming back, throbbing harder now as STEM slowly began to sink back into the nerves and passageways of her brain.

"I just wanted her to know that her mother was still with her, that she still loved her- but now she's gone. Lily's gone and there are monsters in here who want her for her seat of power. And if they get to her before I do, they will _kill_ her."

Myra swore she could almost feel the cold wax texture beginning to grow over her skin.

She swore she could feel the _Matriarch_ scratching at her chest, desperate to come alive again.

"I have to protect her. For once in my life, I can't fail this."

The other side of the communicator went silent.

And it remained silent for what felt like several long minutes.

It was just long enough for Myra to fear that Kidman had either been caught or that the woman was having to stay quiet and keep her head down to hide her position. It reminded her that Kidman still had to worry about Mobius, that she still had to worry about the Administrator. Hell it was a miracle that they were speaking right now; it meant that Kidman had been able to sneak way, that she was by herself at the moment- a rare feat under the watchful eye of the Administrator.

It reminded Myra of how difficult it was for Kidman to get away from the suited man, especially in regards to her project work with STEM. Kidman was the only Mobius agent to survive STEM during the attempted cleansing of its unstable launch at Beacon. And the Administrator never let her forget that.

It was like Kidman had been put on a pedestal, just not the kind that anyone would ever want to be on.

The silence planted a seed of fear inside of Myra's chest.

She didn't think she could handle it if Kidman had to back out now, if the woman had to suddenly cut the cord and leave.

This was the first time in three days that she had been coherent enough to call Kidman.

The first time in three days that she had been stable enough in her own mind to remain in this form.

Myra didn't want to be alone in it.

"I know you want to protect Lily," Kidman finally spoke, a little quieter now on her end, "but you can't do that if you're the same monster as everyone else."

Right.

If Myra kept this thought process up, if she allowed for herself to be tricked into thinking that STEM would keep Lily safe, then all of this would be for nothing.

She still had a job to do.

And she would be damned if she let it fall apart now.

"You have to find a way to control this."

She had to, that much Myra knew for certain.

But just because she knew that she had to didn't meant that she knew how to.

"How?" Myra questioned, sliding further down the wall now. Her body felt heavy and it felt like she barely had the strength to keep it supported on its own. She could feel the throbbing in her joints, the hollow ache of tendons pulled too tight, of muscles held clenched for too long. "I've been trying to fight this thing but this is the first time in days that I've been able to maintain this body."

"You need to focus on something other than Lily-"

"She's the only reason I'm in here," Myra reminded, a little sharper than she intended to. "Who else am I supposed to focus on? When I think about Lily, I turn into that monster. When I think about Theodore, I turn into that thing. When I think about myself, when I think about Mobius- it's all the same!"

There was more silence on the other end.

A subtle crackling from the thin frequency between them.

And once more, Myra feared that Kidman had disappeared on her- that she had even ran the woman off with her outburst.

"What about Sebastian?" Kidman offered.

And Myra flinched at the name.

Flinched at how it seemed to come from nowhere.

"I don't... I don't want to think about him," Myra objected; she could hear the pulled strain in her voice at the outright lie. She didn't want to think about him- as if Sebastian wasn't the only continuous thought that had been going through her head for three years now. Lily was the spitting image of him with her dark hair and tan complexion; she even shared some of Sebastian's mannerisms, both inside and outside of STEM.

Lily absolutely adored her father and it had destroyed her when she was lied to about his passing.

Myra had been the one to conjure the lie, knowing that it would be better for Lily that way.

Knowing that it would be it easier that way for Lily to understand why her father wasn't around anymore, and why she couldn't see him again.

But every time she looked at Lily, Myra saw Sebastian.

And it ached like an unforgiving force in her chest.

Myra's safe house inside of STEM was the same house that they had lost to the first three years ago.

It was still untouched; it was still beautiful from the outside and still decorated with family pictures on the inside. Whenever Myra walked the halls, she could hear past memories they had all shared as a family still living there; she could see ghost images of them moving through the house. Sometimes she could still feel Lily's presence in there, like Lily was going to be just around the corner- and if Myra was quick enough, she could catch her.

But... she could never feel Sebastian there.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't find him.

Myra figured that it was her own guilt that kept her from pulling him. Whenever she tried, whenever the thought of Sebastian so much as crossed her mind, all she could think about was the night she left him. She kept replaying the night over and over again like some kind of sick twisted game, going through the same motions, ending up with the same result no matter how hard she tried to change things.

It was all futile.

Sometimes she could still see herself there, writing that letter, knowing full and well that Sebastian would never see her again once she sent it.

Knowing full and well that she had willingly left him when he needed her the most.

That was why Myra was doing this, that was why she was in STEM to begin with- not just for Lily, but to make things up to Sebastian as well.

"What if you could see him again, Myra?"

"You know I can't," Myra reminded, refusing to acknowledge the burning sting in her eyes now. "You know this is an one-way ticket, Juli; we both know this. It wasn't supposed to take this long but... it's going to get done. I will finish this and when it's over, we won't have to worry about it anymore. You'll be free, Lily will be free. She'll be happy and so will Sebastian. I have to do this."

"Not in the state you're in," Kidman spoke. "Myra, please, I'm serious, do you think Sebastian-"

"What good would it be to pretend?" Myra whispered, cutting the woman off once more. She didn't want to talk about this. Not here, not while she was already vulnerable enough to STEM's influence. "I've spent three years agonizing over him-"

"But he would take focus away from Lily, away from Theodore, wouldn't he?"

"Juli-" Myra started, only to stop herself as she felt she had caught on to the woman's persistence. And the idea of what Kidman was or wasn't proposing sank lead weights into her stomach. "Juli, we both know how this plan was going to go. I know this is frustrating and it's not what we anticipated but... You are not under any given condition to bring Sebastian into this. He is never to enter STEM again."

Myra felt her voice strain once more, almost threatening to crack this time as she felt the first hot tear escape between squeezed eyelids.

"He has suffered enough."

There was more silence.

And it left Myra alone to her thoughts, to her unbridled emotions that were beginning to trickle down the curve of her cheeks. She tried to ignore them at first but gave in and hastily wiped them off with the back of her hand. There was a tight pain from the back of her throat down to the base of her neck as she clenched her jaw to keep her lips from shaking.

She couldn't risk breaking down right now.

It would only do more harm than good for her.

"As of two hours ago, Sebastian was admitted into STEM."

Myra stilled at the words, a heavy breath suddenly caught dead in her throat.

The radio now felt like a weight in her hand as she slowly lowered it away from her. It felt like her mind was struggling to process the words, struggling to process what they meant, what effect they now had. She struggled to process how things were far different from how she had anticipated them.

Her worst-case scenario had never factored Sebastian becoming a part of this.

Worst-case scenario had always been that she failed, that Mobius found out about her plan. That she, Kidman, Theodore, and Torres would be executed. That Lily would continue to be used as STEM's core, forever living her life as an illusion inside of Union. At least until she outgrew her role as Core and was no longer an useful asset to Mobius.

Worst-case scenario never prepared her for Theodore's betrayal, for Union's collapse, for STEM's struggle without a Core.

It never prepared her for the possibility of Sebastian joining her in here.

Pulling the radio back up, Myra struggled with what to say, with what to ask. It didn't feel like her throat could even handle speaking with how tight it was, with how it seemed to hold her hostage. She went through several failed attempts before she settled on the simplest one.

"Why?"

A long sigh came from the other end of the radio and it was a gesture that Myra had heard far too many times when working on the force. That hesitant silence followed up by that last bit of forced courage. It brought back memories of news announcements, of coming face-to-face with families to let them know that yes, the body pulled out of the river two days ago was their seventeen-year old son. And yes, there was foul play involved. And no, they didn't have any leads at this current time.

It was the hardest part of the job at times.

"STEM's been offline for a week and we've been in the dark this entire time... The Administrator pushed for it," Kidman answered; her words were somewhat quiet and rushed as she spoke. "Union's on the brink of collapse; we've already lost ninety-five percent of the population and eighty-percent of the world itself. We've lost contact with all of our security teams; Baker's been confirmed dead and the reports are not looking good for the rest of his team. The Administrator wasn't going to risk any more causalities from our numbers. Not to mention, Sebastian has experience from Beacon and-"

"And he's expendable," Myra finished.

She knew exactly how Mobius thought, how Mobius perceived outsiders.

That was why they tested at Beacon.

Not just because of the STEM prototype already available to them, but because no one cared for the patients there; no one would notice them dead or missing. They were considered sub-human to Mobius.

"With Lily running loose as the Core, and with us unable to secure her protection, Sebastian had the perfect motive to be manipulated by," Kidman continued, unearthing plans that Myra should've known Mobius would have in the works. "He didn't come willingly and he didn't go into STEM willingly either- not without the proverbial gun to his head."

Everything was getting harder to swallow now.

So now not only was Theodore responsible for Lily's endangerment, he was also responsible for Sebastian's.

"If they're looking for STEM experience then why didn't they choose Joseph?" Myra pressed.

And almost immediately, she knew that she shouldn't have asked it.

Her anger over Sebastian being pulled into this was blinding her.

"Because Joseph isn't compatible with STEM," Kidman reminded; her voice was tight as though it was coming from between clenched teeth. "He showed poor connection at Beacon and... even with Union, he couldn't properly connect; he exhibited the same symptoms from Beacon even when given a separate identity. Hoffman already deemed him a liability should he enter STEM again."

Of course.

Myra had read over Joseph's report as well as Kidman's statements on him as well.

Her firsthand experiences were... disturbing to say the least.

Myra had worked with Joseph for years alongside Sebastian; she always knew the man to be calm, collective, maybe even a bit dissociative in some regards. He was very work-orientated and detail-focused; there were very few things that could escape him. Enough so that when Myra was training Kidman to infiltrate the KCPD, she warned the woman to take extra precaution around Joseph.

Even so much as a single slip of the tongue could give him something to work off of.

But the reports that Kidman turned in following Beacon detailed a man Myra didn't recognize.

And even now, three years later, Joseph was still unrecognizable.

It was worth questioning just why the Administrator kept Joseph around even after the man had been labeled a liability, a threat to Union's stability even. Why keep him around when he couldn't even be indoctrinated into Mobius' own ranks.

But Myra knew why.

Joseph was easy leverage against Kidman.

Hoffman's reports on Kidman following Beacon showed surprising detail of regret and guilt in the woman's psyche, all of which was rooted back to Joseph. And the few times Myra and Kidman had the time and privacy for their own talks, Kidman often talked about the nightmare of killing Joseph inside of STEM. She was well aware that it was all fake now, but in the moment it felt real, and she still had nightmares of seeing him dying over and over again.

And given his imprisonment with Mobius now, death would seem like mercy.

Joseph was leverage against Myra as well.

The Administrator had no reason to question their loyalty, not at that time anyways, but he was always prepared for anything and everything. He was always prepared should something decide to happen. And his constant reminders about Joseph's imprisonment here only pushed on the fact that as long as she and Kidman stayed in line, Joseph would remain unharmed- or at least, he would remain alive.

"Sebastian can help you, Myra," Kidman spoke, calm once more. "He survived STEM's influence before and he even helped Joseph fight through it too."

Myra felt the weight of exhaustion heavy throughout her body now.

She was physically drained and her emotional welfare was plummeting fast.

"I read your reports on Beacon, you said that he turned Haunted once," Myra spoke, rubbing at her cheeks once more, trying to hide the evidence of her draining physique. Every inch of her ached inside and out. And it wasn't going to get better from here; it would only get worse. "What makes you think he can resist Union?"

"Because the only time Sebastian had gone Haunted was due to Ruvik's direct influence on him," Kidman reminded. "Ruvik couldn't touch me inside of STEM, so he used Sebastian as a puppet- but it was the only time he had ever show affliction. Despite everything he was battling before Beacon, Sebastian exhibited strong mental and psychological traits when inside of STEM. I had an added boost helping me, but Sebastian had nothing; so in the end, STEM simply couldn't overpower him."

Myra sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose once more. "... That must be where Lily got it from."

"I'm sorry, Myra. I did what I could to avoid this."

She closed her eyes and pulled her knees closer to her chest. "I know you did, Juli," Myra whispered, knowing well she needed to recollect herself before STEM could take advantage of the situation she had found herself in. "Have you... have you spoken with him? Does he even know I'm in here?"

"He only knows about Lily," Kidman assured. "As for speaking with him, yeah, I'm trying to help guide him through Union right now. He didn't start off where he should've and we're still trying to figure out just what the black spot between here and Union is, but... he's in there with you."

Myra could only imagine what was going through Kidman's mind right now.

She was currently on the outside of STEM trying to control what little communications remained on the inside. Kidman was trying to guide Sebastian through the mess of Union that Myra herself had help to create. On top of that, Kidman was trying to keep her on task, trying to keep her from succumbing to STEM like everyone else in Union- all while the Administrator was looking over her shoulder. And there was no doubt that the man was reminding her time and time again how everything was resting on her.

If Kidman couldn't get Sebastian to save Union, to salvage STEM, to reconnect the Core, then there would be consequences to pay.

Kidman had four lives hanging in the balance here.

Herself, Sebastian, Lily, and Joseph.

One out-of-power motion and the whole thing could come crumbling down.

One out-of-power motion and everyone that Kidman knew was going to be dead.

Maybe even herself included.

"We both know it wasn't suppose to come down to this and if it was up to us, it wouldn't have. But we don't have that kind of control right now- and right now, I can't risk losing you," Kidman started. "You're the only card we have in play; you're the only person who can pull this off. We've got Torres in there, but she's only there for support; she doesn't know STEM like you do. So please, Myra, just... forget about the plan, okay? Forget about everything right now and focus on yourself. Focus on finding Sebastian first. He's our key to finishing what we started here."

Sebastian had survived the Beacon incident.

He had survived STEM three years before, back when it was worse off than this.

Maybe... maybe he could help her.

"What do I do? What do I even tell him? And what if- what if I'm that _thing_ when I find him?" Myra questioned.

"He'll know what to do," Kidman assured once more; and the woman sounded oddly confident despite knowing nothing about what was going on inside of here. She had experience with the Haunted, not the Lost. She had experience with Beacon, not Union. "You work on finding Sebastian and you let me handle the rest, okay? And just go with whatever I say, alright? You can trust me. Sebastian doesn't... he doesn't have to know everything. Not right now at least."

It wouldn't be right to leave in him the dark like that, to continue leaving him without answers.

And while Union certainly wouldn't be the place for it, he deserved to know what had happened to her.

He deserved to know what she did to him.

"And what if he just shoots me on sight?" Myra asked, and even she was surprised at how bitter the words sounded.

Sebastian would have every right to be angry with her.

He would have every right to refuse her, to let her succumb to STEM's influences.

It would be what she deserved.

But... that wasn't the kind of man Sebastian was.

And despite everything between them, Myra knew he would never even think, let alone risk harming her.

Monster or not.

"He won't," Kidman started, another blind assurance. "... He still wears his wedding ring, you know? Just like you still do."

Myra used the radio in hand to conceal the solid band on her left finger; she had to resist the urge to touch it, to twist it around like she used to do when she was in thought. She had contemplated taking it off numerous times before and had gotten close to doing so a few but... she never could go through with it. She could barely even touch it some days.

This ring was the only connection she had to Sebastian during her initial months with Mobius- at least until after the Beacon incident.

She had his coat hanging in her office; the one she and Lily had gotten for him.

The Mobius agents who had initially dragged him into the basement of Beacon had removed it before they hooked him up to STEM. And Myra had been quick to claim the familiar coat just before they evacuated the building.

It was against protocol but... she needed something else to remember him by.

Fingers slowly moved to touch at the gold band, feeling the smoothness of it under her fingertips.

Myra could still remember picking the ring out; she could still hear herself insisting on a flat band rather than the traditional gem ring.

The two of them worked with law enforcement; they were always going out on cases, always going out to crime scenes. She didn't want to worry about the ring getting stuck on something or getting knocked loose while handling evidence. She wanted something simple, something low-maintenance- something that would allow her to keep her hands free without erasing the symbolism completely.

So she and Sebastian settled on getting matching rings.

Just plain, solid gold bands.

They were simple but it got the representation across- although not without sometimes missing on the first try.

It only told her that Sebastian never forgot about her.

That he never stopped looking for her.

"It's been three years," Myra whispered, "we would have a lot to talk about."

"A lot of time to make up for," Kidman agreed. "It might be enough to keep you from thinking about Lily. And it would be a good start for Sebastian to help you get you back on your feet again. And when things are back in the clear, you two can put an end to this."

Wishful thinking.

Not exactly Kidman's strongest feature but... someone had to be the optimistic one here.

Someone had to keep trying, to keep pushing.

Taking a deep breath, trying to force herself to unclench and unwind, Myra pushed herself up and slowly worked her way off of the supply crate. She bit through the nauseating headache that threatened to take her over again, that threatened to squeeze all of the contents out of her stomach. "Alright," she started, as she settled her weight back on her feet, testing her strength first before she took the first step. She needed to find an exit out of here, she needed to figure out which arm of the Marrow that she was in. "I'm going back to Union then. I... I'm going to find Sebastian."

"He should be easy to find," Kidman remarked, before the sound of background noise seemed to draw the woman's attention. "Shit, I have to go now, alright? Just please, Myra, please stay safe."

"Don't worry about me," Myra replied, "just worry about covering your own ass, alright?"

"I don't know when I'll be able to get back into contact with you-"

"We've already said our goodbyes, Juli," Myra reminded.

"... I know."

* * *

 **A/N: Okay so this is part 1 of 2 for this AU setting I want to do.**

 **And it's basically just TEW2 BUT with Sebastian and Myra operating as a husband-wife team. That is it.  
**

 **From here, I'm just going to do sporadic AU stories that will reference back to this story. I haven't decided if I'm just going to compile everything into one story collection or post all of them separately as their own stories. Big decisions to make, but I at least wanted to get the origin idea out there.**

 **Been playing the game and trying to do more wiki research, so not everything is 100% accurate.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Okay SO, change of plans, this is part 2 of 3 actually.**

 **I changed the POV for this chapter and it ended up becoming a lot longer than I anticipated- and a lot longer than I _wanted_ it to be. But it was really hard to find a good stopping point for it and before I knew it, it was sitting at 7K.  
**

* * *

Stepping out of the small gas station, Sebastian tried to ignore the foggy, desolate city that was barely anchored around him.

It reminded him too much of Beacon, of how Krimson City was towards the end of it all- with the floating pieces of the city hanging above and all around him. And now, Union was doing the exact same thing, just maybe not to the same degree- but give it time. It was almost like Union and Krimson were one in the same; the same city played twice over.

After the massacre of Beacon, the havoc Ruvik created, Sebastian figured someone would've realized that STEM wasn't necessarily a toy to be played with.

That it wasn't a machine that someone needed to fuck with.

But with enough stupidity and enough money, anyone could do anything with whatever they wanted.

He had seen enough of it when dealing with police business and bureaucracy.

And somehow, he still managed to get himself dragged back into this shit.

...

But this wasn't about STEM.

This wasn't about Mobius- or that asshole in the suit.

This was about Lily.

Sebastian sighed and looked down at the doll he had recovered from the back of the gas station; it was one of the three dolls Lily always liked to carry around with her. Just out of the blue one day, Lily asked Myra to make her some dolls- and Lily had been insistent that the dolls resemble the three of them as a family. An odd request- and a difficult one at that. But Myra, despite having no knitting or crocheting skills, was determined to honor the request.

It was a lot of late nights and lunch breaks spent watching videos and cursing at the wrong hook and knot, but Myra did get them done.

And the moment the dolls left Myra's hands, they never left Lily's.

...

The one Sebastian was currently holding looked just like Lily; she had dropped it during her escape from whatever psychopath was chasing her.

And now he needed to get to her before that monster did.

His radio had already picked up on the next frequency he needed to follow.

So now he just had to get across Union without drawing attention to himself.

But given his track record with that, it was more like getting across Union without drawing _too_ much attention.

Carefully stringing the doll to the side of his belt, Sebastian started across the small parking lot. He had left most of those creatures where they were in the surrounding fields, eating whatever carcass remains they had found. He knew about the Haunted from Beacon, but these things weren't the same- they didn't even look the same; he had no idea what to call them. Hell, he didn't even know what had caused them. A few scattered pieces of Mobius reports and papers had mentioned something about creating alternate identities inside of Union. And even that one survivor he had spoken to had mentioned something about a sleep aid test- and something about a man who called himself her husband even though she had never been married.

So just what was the catch here?

He knew about the Core, knew about Lily escaping, and knew that that was what STEM's downfall was.

But how did it create these things?

(More importantly, why was he even bothering with it?)

Sebastian barely made it a few feet away from the gas station building before the sound of the grass rustling all around him stopped him dead. He stayed still and kept quiet, waiting for the sound to repeat itself while one hand slowly reached for his holstered gun. And it didn't take long for the sound to repeat, as well as for him to catch movement in the tall grass to his left.

Based on how the grass was shaking, how it was being parted, a good sized something was running through it- and it was running dead in his direction.

And it was only seconds before he watched as some kind of creature launched out of the grass.

And from the distance and angle, he had no fucking idea what he was looking at.

It vaguely looked like two human torsos that had been sewn together in the middle, but with each torso facing the opposite direction. With the lack of visible legs, it looked like there were a multitude of arms instead, half-bent, half-broken, that it used to move with.

Sebastian stepped back, half-wondering if it would be better if he just made a run for it instead. He didn't know Union at all and there was no telling just what exactly he'd run into in that field if he got reckless; he sure as hell didn't want to run into the tall, emaciated creature. And going back into the gas station was out of the question, especially considering that he doubted the thin wooden door would do much to stop whatever the hell this was.

But as his luck would have it, a second one appeared only a few feet down- blocking part of his escape route.

 _Perfect._

But just as quick as the creatures had appeared, so did something else.

With his hand only now pulling his gun free, Sebastian watched as what looked to be a white substance of some kind quickly bubbled up through the cracks of the asphalt. And the moment the creatures hit the white puddles, it acted as some kind of thick, tar-like substance; it caught the odd torsos by the hands, by the arms, forcing them to fight to keep moving.

And once enough of the white substance had pooled out, part of it twisted up, and pulled free, forming a tendril-like shape that quickly snagged one of the creatures around the midsection. It wrapped and coiled around the mutilated human form, causing the creature to struggle, causing hands and arms to scramble in an attempt to get free- only to be crushed seconds later.

The crushing force damn near snapped the mutilated body in half, causing each torso to go limp in the aftermath.

The tendril dropped the first body and quickly snatched the second creature as soon as it had struggled free.

This one screamed and shrieked just before it was crushed; its body convulsed as it hit the asphalt, spewing a mix of blood and bile from its dual mouths.

It was all over in a matter of seconds, in the blink of an eye.

Sebastian barely had a chance to turn and see what exactly had attacked the creatures, to see just what exactly he was now up against, before he felt something slam into his left side.

And it hit with the force of a car- easily throwing him into the abandoned pick-up truck nearby.

He smashed into the side of it and felt the car door buckle underneath the force; he also felt what might've been his whole rib-cage shifting out of place for a split second upon impact. His head was immediately filled with a ringing sound, disorienting his senses, slowing down his reaction to what had just happened- but the feeling of something warm trickling down from his forehead pulled him back from the distraction.

Hands fumbled to pull himself free and Sebastian felt himself actually having to push his body out of the now damaged car door. More frustratingly, he felt himself having to pull out of the now shattered window, which was exactly what his head had gone through; which was why he could feel shards of glass now falling against his face and shoulders.

One hand reached back and grabbed the edge of the truck bed, which he had to use as leverage to pull himself free- as well as give himself a head start with putting space between him and whatever had struck out at him.

Pain shot through his ribs and right shoulder as he moved, crippling him to some degree. He had been partially turned when he was struck, causing the back of his right shoulder to hit instead- and he was pretty certain that had he hit dead on, his shoulder would've gotten dislocated. Which didn't seem to matter considering it still felt like it actually had been.

Sebastian made it to the end of the length of the truck bed before he heard the sound of something smashing into the truck seconds after him. He turned in time to see a white mass almost covering the entire side of the cab. He thought it was the same tendril thing as before but as the mass pulled back, resembling something that was like half-liquid, half plaster, he could see the loose form of a hand instead. It was much bigger than the tendril with the obvious shape of misaligned fingers and palm.

If that thing had been what hit him the first time, than it definitely would've killed him with the second blow.

He watched as the melting wax of a hand pulled away, returning to where the whole front of the gas station was now covered in the same white substance.

Sebastian half-stumbled back as the pain in his right hip had now solidified.

He reached up and wiped the warm blood from his face, trying to keep it from getting into his eyes.

And he watched as the hand dissipated into a growing pool that was quickly covering the parking lot- revealing the slender figure half-hidden behind it.

His eyes locked on to the white robe, the low hanging hood, the webbed scarring running up the legs, and his mind first jumped to Ruvik.

But before old memories could draw upon old scars, he watched as the figure reached up to remove the low-hanging hood- revealing something, _someone_ , completely different underneath it.

Sebastian watched as the hood dropped around cloaked shoulders, revealing a face half covered in white webs; the same material that was currently eating away at everything around them. He stepped back as the figure raised its head and turned it in his direction. And his eyes were drawn to the firm press of thin lips, the blonde hair pulled back, leaving only a few loose strands to fall across the face.

But more importantly, his eyes were drawn to the white earrings that just barely caught the dim light of the gas station's florescent bulbs.

"Myra?"

The name escaped him before Sebastian even had time to question it, to rationalize it.

It was impossible, he knew that; Myra was gone, she had been gone for a long time now.

There was no way this monster in front of him now was her.

And yet... the hair, the jawline, the body- the _damn earrings_!

If he was any closer to her, Sebastian almost be willing to bet that he'd find a scar just below her ribs.

Another hand-like appendage raised itself out of the white substance at her feet.

"You think you can take _my_ Lily away from me?"

There it was, that voice.

It was the same voice, it was Myra's voice!

It felt like a knife had been plunged into his gut.

This wasn't possible, this wasn't happening.

Sebastian found himself stepping back, moving away from her, away from whatever creature this was. He still didn't know how to process what he was seeing, what he was hearing. He recognized everything about her, but he knew it wasn't possible.

"I will kill you to protect her!"

The hand swung forward, striking the pick-up truck once more- this time, sending it careening into the field surrounding them. And once it had finished, the mutilated, half-melting hand pulled back up and turned to face him.

And before Sebastian could even think, it was already too late.

The mutilated wax hand was on him.

It caught him from the right side in an arch and grabbed onto him this time, holding onto him as it slung him back towards the gas station. And Sebastian felt it slam him into the side of the building this time; he felt the brick front crunch underneath him, almost cratering in as the force of the blow resonated throughout his body- sending more hot pain through his bones.

The hand released him almost immediately, causing him to collapse to the ground below.

It felt like his limbs had locked up, like they were too stunned to move as he hit the asphalt dead on.

The fall felt almost cushioned at first, which he blamed on delayed reactions- only to soon realize that the white substance had covered the ground around the side of the gas station as well. The substance was almost cool to the touch, but it clung and stuck to his skin like glue, like tape. With a twice battered spine, it was a struggle for him to get himself to move, let alone to push himself out of the substance; it pulled hard pain across his ribs and shoulders, and it felt like his skin was constantly under threat of getting ripped off.

Sebastian was barely to his feet before he watched as several of those tendril-things shot out from the pool underneath him.

They caught him around the wrists and gripped tight around his legs, locking him in place.

He struggled against the holds only to feel the vicing grip get tighter, threatening to cut the blood flow to his hands.

The battle was over before it had even started.

He looked up to see her come around the corner and watched as she began moving towards him; she wasn't the least bit affected by the substance at her bare feet. But the closer she got to him, the more he recognized who she was- and even he couldn't fight the resemblance anymore.

"Myra-"

"You just want to use her, just like the rest of them," she spoke, raising her hand this time- drawing more tendrils up from the pool with it.

"Myra, stop- I know that's you," Sebastian started, unable to stop the shaking in his own voice. She was only a few feet from him now; despite how different she looked, despite the white webbing that crawled up her abdomen, he could still see the faded bullet scar. "I'm not going to hurt-"

There was a hint of hesitation, just barely a second, before she flicked her wrist anyways.

Sending one of the tendrils towards him.

Sebastian felt the force of the blow land against his left shoulder before he felt the pain. The whip-like appendage cut in through flesh and muscle, hitting hard enough that it sank his shoulder down under the weight of the strike. There was a second of numbness that followed, that quickly spread down his arm, almost burning in the tips of his fingers before the pain flooded in afterwards.

It was hot, burning pain that pulled tight across his chest.

And it was only made worse by the blood that spewed out with the violent strike, mixing red with the white substance pooling at his feet.

He grunted, biting back a scream as the tendril anchoring his arm tightened around his wrist once more, fighting against the way he had instinctively pulled it back.

He could feel the pain throbbing down to the bone, leaving him questioning if something had been broken.

"You won't touch her- Lily is _my_ daughter!"

So she knew.

If Myra knew that Lily was here- she must know that Lily was the Core.

But how?

How the _fuck_ was she in here? How was she in STEM?

Despite the pounding ringing in his head, despite the pain throbbing hard in the echoes of his shoulder, Sebastian knew what the answer was no matter how much he wanted to deny it. If Mobius could take Lily, and fake everything- the house fire, the murders, _everything_ \- nothing was stopping them from going after Myra either. Her notes, the package she had left him- she knew.

She knew something had happened, she knew someone was behind it, and she went after them.

...

If Mobius didn't want to be found, they couldn't be found.

But Myra had found them.

 _Goddamnit!_

And if that was the case then... she was just like the rest of the creatures in here, just on a bigger scale. But what triggered it? What caused these monsters in the first place? The Haunted were people who had succumbed to Ruvik's torture, to the evil that permeated inside of STEM; they became filled with despair and lost themselves, only to be remolded in what Ruvik's image of them were.

But there was no Ruvik here- there was no Core.

So what was the missing link?

What was making Myra like this?

"Lily is _our_ daughter, Myra!"

For a second, everything seemed to go still.

Sebastian watched as Myra stood in place; her hand still raised where it had been- fingers just barely quivering.

And then they went from quivering to shaking, almost convulsing.

The creature, Myra- her whole body was shaking, contorting almost before it looked as though she started to flicker in and out of place. There was this split-second of an animalistic howl before she grabbed at her head; her body bending over on itself, like she was in pain, like she was in agony.

And he could do nothing but watch as fingers cut down to her neck, slicing open at her own skin.

"Myra, no-"

Fingers dug into the cuts, curling in under the skin before she began tearing at it- ripping it off.

Sebastian could feel himself almost panicking, unsure exactly of what was going on, of what he was seeing. He never shot his gun, didn't even land a blow to her, and yet it was like she was convulsing in pain, like she was dying. But the binds on his hands and legs were still tight, refusing to allow him to move, to go to her. But he tried, testing the tendrils once more- only to feel them retaliate still. The ones around his legs moved further up, wrapping around his knees before they began squeezing- damn near threatening to dislocate his kneecaps.

And the pain would've brought him down had the tendrils themselves not been holding him up.

When Sebastian looked up to her again, he watched as the skin she had peeled off came away like that same white substance, melting off in her hands.

Fingers tore at the white cloak on her shoulders, ripping it off, revealing wax skin half melted off her body, pooling down to her feet.

And then she collapsed, falling down to her knees; her body limp as it went through the motions.

The white substance around her began drying up, seeping back down into the cracks of the asphalt.

Sebastian felt the tendrils give away and the lack of support made it very evident to how weak he was. He was lucky enough to catch himself on his knees but the distinctive pain in his ribs, in his back took him down further; he hit the asphalt on his right shoulder, hoping to spare his left from the same misfortune. Breathing through mostly gritted teeth, Sebastian moved one hand to his left shoulder- feeling the warm mess of blood squeezing out between his fingers.

His head was thundering still and his eyes were starting to burn from the blood that had gotten into them.

The wound on his shoulder didn't feel deep but... it was bleeding more than he thought it was; he could feel where the warm blood had been streaming down his chest.

It didn't take much to notice that it was quiet again.

That the ground underneath him was dry.

Too much had happened at one time, it was hard to get his thoughts together- to make sense of what had just happened.

He knew it was her and he knew there was a reason but... part of him couldn't believe it- wouldn't believe it.

Myra could very well be a hallucination; an act created by that ghost, that haunting he had encountered just before. The one that had dragged him back to Beacon, that made him relive all those memories again.

Maybe it was just using her.

Using her to get to him.

To find the faults, the scars that STEM had already left behind.

"... Myra," Sebastian whispered, more to himself than out loud.

Maybe she wasn't real... but he had to know for certain.

Allowing the shock to pass over him, Sebastian got his right arm underneath him and slowly began to push himself back up- groaning as his ribs protested the motion. His left arm still felt like it was numb but he could still move his hand and fingers, so it couldn't be that bad; just a surface wound that might've struck a nerve and was just now coming off of that high.

Trying to remember to breathe, he got himself up to his hip, to one knee before he forced himself to look over to where that creature had collapsed. And he braced himself for disappointment.

But he was surprised to see it still there.

Only it wasn't that creature anymore.

No...

Sebastian watched as Myra looked up to meet his eyes and he felt that sense of numbness rush over his whole body. He forced himself to blink a few times, half expecting to see her disappear, to see her vanish, but she never so much as moved.

There was no more white cloaked, blinded creature.

Instead there was Myra, dressed in a black suit he didn't recall her owning but knowing it didn't make a difference. Myra had always been cold-natured; it was a rarity to catch her outside of a sweater, or at least outside of a long-sleeve shirt. And she usually always paired them with a black jacket to look more professional. Myra had always been a simple person, preferring simplicity over everything else. It was why she preferred a flat wedding band, why she always wore simple, similar-looking outfits day in and day out. That was just who she was, that was just how she was.

But why here?

"Sebastian?"

And he heard his own name in a voice he hadn't heard in years.

He watched as she attempted to move, only to see her whole body visibly quiver in pain; only to see her face contort, only to see her eyes squeeze shut as her head fell back down.

Sebastian forgot about the pain he was in as he worked himself to his feet, ignoring the tight pull that came from his back with the movement. He could still feel the impact of the car, the impact of the wall throughout his body, but none of it mattered as he forced himself to move to her. It looked like she could barely keep herself up and there was this sense of dread, this sense of panic that if she hit the ground like this, she would dissipate; she would cease to exist.

So when he knelt down in front of her and pulled her up to him, Sebastian half-expected her to melt in his hands the same way that white substance had.

But Myra didn't.

He hesitated before he moved his hands to cup her jaw, one hand brushing aside the loose blonde strands that had fallen into her face. And it didn't take long before her hands moved to cover his own, squeezing them in her grasp before she forced her head up to look at him once more.

There were sporadic trickles of blood running down her face just the same, and she was trying to blink them away just the same.

And despite having her here, having her in his own hands- Sebastian still couldn't bring himself to believe.

It shouldn't have been like this.

Not here, not in STEM of all places.

"It's me," Myra whispered, speaking again before she moved her hands to his face now. Her palms were cold against his skin but he could feel the slight curl of her fingers against him, almost like she was having to prove to herself that he was real too. "I know... I know it shouldn't be but it is."

She knew.

She knew.

Sebastian pulled her into him, feeling the way Myra fell against him- almost pulling herself in just the same. And for a second, just a small split second, it was almost like nothing had changed. It was almost like three years hadn't passed between them. He felt the warmth, the weight of her against him; he felt the tangling of her fingers in the folds of his shirt as she kept herself anchored to him- not that it was necessary.

He wasn't going to let her go.

Not again.

"I'm so sorry," Myra started, whispering somewhere between his collarbone and the curve of his neck.

It was almost hard to hear her choke out the words and it was only then that Sebastian heard the quiet sobs that spilled between them. He could feel her body shaking in his hold; he could feel each choking gasp, each choking breath as it ripped through her. He pulled her in, squeezing her a little tighter, and felt her fingers burrow harder against him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"

It was the same two words over and over again.

And each time, it only got harder and harder to hear.

After all these years, all he wanted to do was see her again- all he wanted was to hear her just one more time.

But not like this.

Never like this.

"Myra, it's okay, it's okay," Sebastian repeated, one hand moving to stroke through her hair, feeling the soft strands through his fingers.

It was a habit he had always loved doing, especially late at nights or in the early mornings, when they were both half-awake, half-asleep- and fully reluctant to face the new day. Myra used to tease and complain that he was getting her hair dirty- that he was the reason she wore it back so often. And he'd remind her that for as long as he had known her, she had always worn her hair back.

"Just breathe, honey, just breathe."

It took a moment or two to get her to calm down, but eventually Myra laid quiet against him; her fingers still clinging to his shirt.

It felt like they were both desperate to believe that the other one was there with them.

Sebastian wanted to let himself sink into the moment but stopped as he spotted movement in the corner of his vision. And when he looked up, he could see the faint moving silhouettes of figures in the distance- and he had no doubts that the creatures had been drawn in by the commotion. And it wouldn't be long before they were up here with them.

And after witnessing what the creatures could do to a human body, much like the Haunted, Sebastian knew that they needed to move now; they needed to make themselves disappear if they wanted to avoid a similar fate.

He hated to think what would happen if more of those two-torso'd creatures showed up.

"Come on, we need to get inside," Sebastian started, as he reluctantly began to pull away from her- although he never took his hands off of her.

It felt like Myra wanted to fight him on that, reluctant to let him go, but she eventually gave in- no doubt understanding the severity of the situation. Without whatever powers she had had before, she wasn't quite the same impeccable foe.

"Okay."

Sebastian started to get to his feet and felt the way Myra came with him- but it didn't take long to realize how she was struggling with the act; it didn't seem like she could move all that much from where she was kneeling.

There was no telling just how long she had been that monster.

Sebastian knew that Joseph had always been physically exhausted, physically ill every time he had managed to overcome being Haunted. So running the possibility that Union and Beacon were similar, there was no reason to think that Myra wasn't going through the same ordeal.

"I got you," Sebastian assured, as he knelt back down to her and moved to hook his arm underneath one of hers. Bracing his arm across her back, he let Myra lean on him as he hoisted the two of their feet, before he stooped down and caught her legs in his arm. His left shoulder tried to resist the motion, but he stuck it out despite the trembling it sent down his arm. Lifting her up against him, he heard her groan softly before she leaned inward against his chest.

He kept his hands firm against her, unable to stop the thought that she might disappear again if he let his grip slip even the slightest.

Careful to step around the corner of the gas station, Sebastian kept a steady eye on the surrounding field before he slowly made his way towards the front door. Most of the creatures seemed to have gathered around the smoking pick-up, which had now landed sprawled across the street below. With luck, most of the moving figures he could see were actually facing the opposite direction from them, and wouldn't notice where they had disappeared to.

Sebastian carefully shouldered the door open and stepped inside, cursing the small bell that rang overhead.

Pushing the door closed behind him, he looked down to Myra once more, taking note that her eyes were closed now; she looked like she was asleep. But after witnessing the ordeal she had gone through, the painful looking transformation, it was more likely that she had passed out. Her fingers were still curled tight against the collar of his shirt, wrinkling the material in her hold.

Sebastian carried her over to the corner booth and carefully set her down against the long cushioned seat.

And that was when he noticed it.

The red Mobius emblem stitched onto the front of her jacket.

So maybe he had been right- even if it wasn't the thing he wanted to be right about.

But there was no denying the proof in front of him.

Sebastian started to pull away only to feel the subtle tug of Myra's fingers still tight against his collar. As reluctant as he was, he carefully took her hand and freed himself- gently squeezing her fingers before he set her hand back down at her side. He carefully brushed her hair back once more and realized that there was still blood trickling down her face, abet slower than it had been before, and most of it was now half-dried against her skin. There were small cuts on her forehead, below her eyes, and on her temples; the injuries were too small to be from any creatures he had witnessed so far.

But he remembered the way she had ripped at her wax skin, melting it away in her hands.

He remembered catching a glimpse of her clawing at the webs that had grown over her eyes and stripping it off.

That must've been it.

Stepping back, Sebastian started to look for something to wash the blood off with before he turned and happened to look out the open window front to his left. He could see clear across the parking lot, just to the edge of the field before the fog began to blur the horizon line. And if he could see that far out, it meant anything out there could see straight inside.

Rule one of first aid was to secure the scene first, victim second.

He moved to each window and dropped the blinds, ensuring that if one of those creatures did decide to get close and investigate, it wouldn't be able to spot them inside. Not right off the bat anyways.

(He had hopes that they wouldn't be here for long- but at the same time, he had no say in that either.)

Sebastian moved back behind the counter and grabbed a rag that had been stuffed into one of the drawer handles; given its still soft texture, it might've never been used- or at least had just been cleaned. He tested the faucet for running water and was surprised to find it still working; he guessed none of Union's main water lines had been ripped out of the ground just yet- wouldn't take long though at this rate. Soaking the rag under the water, he wrung it out until it was just damp, before he walked back to where Myra was.

She was still out but... more importantly, she was still here.

And that was the thing that continued to surprise him.

Myra groaned softly under the cold touch but offered little else other than a soft twitch on the corner of her lips. The blood had coated her face in painted red lines and had made its way halfway down her neck. But once it had been cleaned up, there was hardly any evidence of any injuries to begin with. It was impossible to know just what kind of creature she had been only moments ago.

Once she was done, Sebastian worked to clean the blood off of his own face- and unfortunately found the rather impressive gash that had cut just above his right temple. It was a thin but jagged wound that stretched out about two inches along his hairline; a fairly simple wound given that his whole head had gone through the driver side window- which wouldn't be the first time that had happened to him. At the very least, it wasn't all that bad of an injury once the bleeding had stopped.

That didn't mean that part of his scalp hadn't been cut open though; he just wasn't going to go looking for wounds.

Now that that had been taken care of though, Sebastian once more found himself with too many questions and too few answers. Now it just felt like he was in a worse situation than he had been in before- as if he already didn't have a clue about what he was doing here.

But he needed answers and he knew exactly who to go to for those.

It was just a matter of if she would give them to him.

As fingers tugged his radio free, Sebastian paused as his hand brushed against Lily's doll still hanging from his belt; he had already forgotten about it. Carefully pulling it free, he set it down on the table next to Myra before he moved to the other end of the small indoor, would-be cafe.

"Kidman."

There was only a few seconds of silence before the other end spoke up.

"Yeah, Sebastian? I'm here."

He took a few seconds to piece his words together, wondering just what exactly he could trust telling the other woman. At this point, he had no other options though- as if he didn't feel like he wasn't already backed into a corner. "... I just found Myra in here," Sebastian started, and he swore he heard what might've been a quiet gasp on the other end. He glanced back to Myra, remembering the red emblem on her jacket. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

"I had hopes," Kidman replied, sounding breathless. "When the Core went missing a week ago, so did Myra. Everything was dark on this side, we couldn't get contact- we haven't _had_ contact. I feared the worse for her."

Sebastian figured Kidman was talking out her ass to him, trying to stay on his good side- and despite how much he hated it, he had to be rationale first. He had to think this through; he had to keep Kidman talking. And that was the big thing here, Kidman was talking. She was acknowledging what he was seeing in front of him.

"So... Myra's really in here?" he questioned. "I'm not going crazy?"

"No, Sebastian, you're not."

Despite his hard feelings towards Kidman, Sebastian felt comfort in the assurance- in the fine line of reality that was so often blurred in here. So this wasn't just some kind of trick that STEM was playing on him. This wasn't the work of that creature haunting him, dragging him through old nightmares, and forcing him to see where all his mistakes lied.

The calm feeling lasted only a few seconds at best though.

Only a few seconds before he felt anger, before he felt distrust take over.

"You want to tell me why the _hell_ she's in here then? And why the _hell_ she's with Mobius?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end; a gated breath.

"Sebastian-"

"When Mobius took Lily, Myra figured them out, didn't she?" Sebastian interrupted, not wanting to give Kidman the chance to lie to him. "When Mobius doesn't want to be found, they can't be found, isn't that right, Kidman? That's what their fucking game is. But... Myra found them, didn't she?"

"Yes," Kidman answered, rather quickly this time- perhaps hoping to save herself from getting cut off again. "Mobius' usual method of operation is to kill the informants and/or witnesses and ensure that it seems like they just... disappeared. Sometimes they use STEM to finish the job to keep their hands physically clean. But Mobius was impressed with Myra's skills and seeing as she was Lily's biological mother, they decided that she would be more worth to them alive. STEM needs a stable host to act as a Core, and with Myra around, Lily was always stable."

It was the answer he was looking for, the answer he wanted to hear.

And now he wanted nothing to do with it.

"Mobius has been using Lily as leverage to keep Myra working for them, to keep her in line," Kidman continued. "The reason she disappeared three years ago was because she ran the risk of Mobius killing her and hurting Lily." There was a quiet pause before she went on to add, "Myra ran the risk of Mobius coming after you as well."

That was Myra for sure.

Always looking out for her family.

"And the whole time you were working with the KCPD, you knew," Sebastian remarked.

"Yes," Kidman answered- truthful at that. "In all fairness, I knew about Myra, and I knew about Lily... I just didn't know that they were connected to you. I was placed into the KCPD to ensure that no one was catching on to the ordeals going on at Beacon. The murders were wide-spread and well-known, and to be honest, Mobius was catching on to you."

Sebastian didn't care for her answer, for her explanations- her excuses.

"But why is Myra in STEM in the first place?" he pressed.

"Because Lily existed inside of STEM and it gave Myra the chance to be with her whenever she wanted to."

The answer hurt, but he was certain it was the justification that Myra wanted in the end.

Regardless of how she got there, or what she had to sacrifice, Myra still got Lily.

"Was Myra..." Kidman started, sounding hesitant with the question, "is she okay?"

Kidman claimed that she hadn't had contact with those inside of STEM, that she hadn't had contact with Myra since STEM went down.

But he didn't quite believe that claim anymore.

Kidman knew something about what was going on.

"She was... one of those things," Sebastian answered, not willing to give much more of an answer than that. "She just came out of nowhere while I was investigating. I found one of Lily's dolls and the next thing I know, Myra's right in front of me. Pretty sure she was ready to kill me too, but I think she managed to pull herself out of it- I don't know, I don't know how shit works in here." As much as he hated to admit it, he knew how Beacon worked; he knew how the Haunted worked. But Union, these creatures, he was clueless about. "She's unconscious right now and I don't know when she's going to wake up. Or if she is."

"She will," Kidman blindly assured. "Just... please, keep an eye on her."

If he didn't know any better, Kidman actually sounded genuine.

The quickest way to get a suspect to give themselves up was by talking with them, by getting them to talk as long as you could. And right now, despite training, Kidman was falling right into that method.

"What's your deal with Myra, Kidman?"

"We can talk about this later-"

"We could, or I could throw this radio into the first ditch I find," Sebastian interrupted.

It was a half-empty threat considering that he did need Kidman's guidance in finding Lily, as much as Sebastian was reluctant to admit it. But at the same time, Kidman was relying pretty heavily on him to do the same.

Hell, all of Mobius was right now.

"Myra was the one who actually recruited me for Mobius," Kidman answered. "I was spending my youth in and out of juvenile detention, and I was on the fast track to spending my adulthood in prison too. Name a crime and I've probably tried it at least once. I was easy pickings for Mobius and I won't deny that I jumped at the opportunity for an easy way out. After the ordeal with Beacon though, Myra and I got stuck working together with the new Union project; I've been working with her on it for the past three years now. She was always asking questions and talking about you."

He didn't want to hear that right now.

"Listen, call me back when she's awake, okay? I got something I have to do."

Sebastian didn't think Kidman actually did, but he didn't feel like fighting her on it- and he didn't feel like talking to her about it anymore either. Despite getting his answers, it didn't feel like he had solved anything.

He heard the line go dead and tossed the radio onto the nearby table, wishing he could go out and chuck it off the edge of the city instead.

Sebastian made his way back to where Myra was, trying to ignore the fact that the throbbing in his head had returned- and with a vengeance at that. It throbbed heavy behind his eyes and at the base of his skull, irritating the painful stiffness that had settled in across his shoulders. He picked up the rag from where he had tossed it before and rinsed it under the faucet again, wringing the blood out of it as best he could.

Taking the booth seat across from Myra, Sebastian leaned back against the wall and carefully brought the rag to his left shoulder- biting back a groan as he applied pressure to it. He had yet to look at the wound itself, but given that it was still bleeding, slower than before at least, it still wasn't the best thing to have at the moment. Especially given he still had a lot ahead of him.

As if the knife going into his shoulder before wasn't bad enough.

This injury almost seemed to be mirroring it exactly.

He closed his eyes and tried to get his thoughts together.

Knowing that that alone was a losing battle.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Did NOT mean to stretch this story out for so long, so super sorry about that! BUT it is finally done and now that I have the basis of this AU set up and going, I can finally start messing around with it and playing with certain scenarios throughout TEW2. Hopefully there won't be too long of a wait with stories to follow up.  
**

* * *

Myra felt the familiar ache of an oncoming migraine greet her the second she came to.

And for the next few agonizing seconds, she cursed her own consciousness as the ache persisted and began to evolve into a throb; it felt like someone was shaking their fist around the inside of her skull.

Regardless, this was a feeling she had almost gotten used to by now- a routine, a habit.

Myra moved a hand to touch lightly at her face, half-expecting to find those webs still clinging to her skin- coiled, waxy, and thick. Although usually if she was conscious enough to search for them, it meant that they weren't there anymore. And such was the case as nothing came from her investigation. Nothing more than her own skin, which felt as though it had been battered and stretched thin.

There were small scabs under her fingertips as well though, small collected bundles at the corners of her eyes and across her brow.

Those were new.

It took a few more calculated breaths, a few more outsourced thoughts- comforting ones at that- before Myra felt as though she could risk moving.

Taking herself up on the risk, Myra eased her eyes open with caution first, preparing to shield herself from the blinding lights that would no doubt be waiting for her. In the back of her mind, she was expecting the Marrow to still be surrounding her; she was expecting to find herself in the same room she had been in before. Despite the memories of leaving the room, despite the hopes of finding a way back to Union, everything went gray immediately after she had stepped through the doorway.

Myra could remember blurred afterimages of movement, of traveling...

But it didn't feel like it was her who had been moving.

Myra was convinced that as soon as she had hung up on Kidman, as soon as she had left the dilapidated security of the Marrow, the Matriarch had found her again.

[The Matriarch always found her, no matter where she tried to hide.]

It wouldn't be the first time the creature had reverted her back to the same room over and over again, no matter how many times she had left it. It was like an endless game of taunting where the Matriarch was always one step ahead of her.

There was no pain, no burning sting when Myra's eyes finally opened- and she found herself blinking several times to ensure it, testing and waiting for the deceptive illusion to break.

But it didn't.

Instead Myra found herself staring at a ceiling that was made of wooden planks that were painted an odd sort of forest-green. It came as a stark contrast to the mind-numbing concrete walls, ceilings, and floors that made up the Marrow. As simplistic as a wooden ceiling was, and as simple as the one above her was, it seemed to hold a sense of comfort in it.

Something that the Marrow greatly lacked- especially now given the circumstances.

Which meant that this wasn't the Marrow at all.

This was Union.

She had made it out despite the Matriarch.

... So why did it feel like she was missing something?

Myra slowly forced herself to move, to sit up, and in doing so, she took note of the booth-like seat underneath her. The dark-auburn color of the fake leather was another stark-contrast to the neutral colors of the Marrow- hell, to the neutral colors of the Mobius HQ as well. It was such a small thing and yet it felt like she had been living in a black and white world for so long, she didn't know how to adjust to this one.

The quaint, cafe-like setting around her was odd to come to terms with.

Her memories were completely blank when she tried to connect the pieces, which only made the realization of something missing all the more concerning.

Just how the hell did she end up here?

The subtle ache of her back as she sat up told her that she had been lying down for longer than she thought- for longer than she needed to; an implication that she had passed out at some point, no doubt after the Matriarch had had its use of her. Did she just happen to get lucky and managed to drag herself in here before the lights went out in her head?

Fingers reached up and pressed against her forehead, and Myra was thankful to feel how the throbbing of a would-be migraine had quickly died down to a shallow throbbing just behind her eyes instead. It was still persistent and annoying, but it was better than dealing with the nausea that would have soon been bubbling up in her chest.

Without the migraine, she was free to think, free to feel with clarity.

For once, the pain in her head wasn't caused by the Matriarch begging, or more like forcing itself to come back out.

For once, it was just a simple headache- one that had either been induced by stress or sleep-deprivation.

Now that she was sitting up and a little more in control, Myra tried to get a better hold of herself. Her head still felt like it was swimming and her body felt like it was trying to move through the same water, but she was physically functioning again. She could get up and move as needed be, which was what she needed to do; she was burning time by just sitting here.

She didn't know how she got to Union exactly but that wasn't the point anymore.

She was here now and she had a job to do- and she had every intention of doing it.

The first step she needed to do was figure out just where exactly in Union she was. A quick look around the small cafe didn't give her much information though- especially not with the blinds pulled down as they were. Her first instinct was to say that she was in the business district, which would put her off-target of where she needed to be. And if such was the case, Myra would have to run the risk of going back into the Marrow in order to gain access to the residential district instead.

After all, she was fairly certain that the trains weren't running anymore.

Moving a hand to the table next to her, Myra used it as leverage to push herself up- and used it for stability when her legs were less than determined to support her. It felt like her whole body was weak, no doubt from overexertion, but she had to keep moving. She had to keep pressing forward- otherwise both she and Lily would remain trapped in STEM.

Myra turned back towards the table when she felt that swimming motion flood through her head again and placed both of her hands on the tabletop for balance. Just a quick breather, a quick recollection of her strength, and she would be good again; she had to be anyways.

And that was when she noticed the doll sitting only a few inches away from her hands.

Myra hesitated at the sight of it before she slowly reached out and gently touched the doll, just barely brushing it with the tips of her fingers. Part of her was fully expecting it to dissolve under her touch like an absent memory, like those ghost images she kept catching of Lily running through the streets of Union.

But the doll remained.

Carefully wrapping her fingers around it, Myra picked the doll up and pulled it close to her, feeling the familiar weight and texture of it in her hands.

Lily's doll.

It was dirtier than it should've been and the left arm must've gotten caught on something given that it was partly torn open, which allowed for some of the stuffing to come free. A rather common issue given how Lily used to take the dolls everywhere with her. Myra couldn't count the amount of times she had to break out the crochet kit just so she could fix up the wear and tear the dolls went through- all while Lily waited anxiously next to her, waiting for her to be done.

Lily wouldn't have just left her doll behind.

Had she-?

Did she run into Lily again?

Did she make Lily drop her doll?

Or maybe she had ripped it away from the girl...

More importantly though, was Lily still around somewhere?

Was her daughter still close by?

Just the thought alone had Myra almost shaking as she pushed herself away from the table and turned to leave.

If Lily was still around, she had a better chance of finding her in this form- she had a better chance of keeping Lily from running away from her.

She knew the Matriarch terrified the girl even though the creature didn't actually wish to harm her. Despite the creature's constant control over her, it's intentions were never to hurt Lily or scare her in any way; the Matriarch was just trying to protect her in all the wrong ways.

Despite the hatred of the idea, Myra knew that if the Matriarch had somehow managed to catch Lily, the girl wouldn't have been hurt in any way.

If anything, Lily would almost be safer with that monster than she would be on the streets of Union.

It just brought up the issue of finding out where the Matriarch would've taken Lily if that was the case. And unfortunately, despite sharing a body, sharing a mind, Myra didn't have the ability to ask the creature that very question.

It didn't matter though- she first needed to look for Lily herself.

Myra didn't think about the dangers that had overrun Union, that had stripped it of people, of stability.

She didn't think about how she was going to defend herself, or how she was going to avoid getting ripped into pieces in this form.

All she cared about was getting to Lily before any of that could happen to her instead.

Myra made it a few steps, just barely cutting halfway across the small cafe before she watched as the door she was heading towards opened on its own. She came to a slow stop as the quiet jingling of the bell above the door broke the suffocating atmosphere of silence that had filled the room around her; for some reason, the small jingling bell sounded oddly familiar.

It reminded her of that piece of memory she was still missing.

And Myra found the answer to the absent memory when she watched Sebastian step in through the door a few seconds after the bell.

She watched as he caught the door and carefully eased it closed behind him, keeping it from slamming shut. He kept it from making noise, from drawing attention- an easy implication that there must've been some of those things lurking around outside.

Despite being only a few feet apart, Sebastian didn't notice her- at least he didn't before he closed his eyes and gave out a heavy exhale.

He seemed more focused on running a hand through his hair, pushing it back and out of his face.

His hand continued on with the motion as he eventually rubbed at the back of his neck- and Myra heard the quiet groan that accompanied the motion.

Myra watched as his hand eventually moved away from his neck before it moved to his left shoulder, fingers slightly clutching at the torn portion of his shirt. She didn't know why she didn't say something, why she didn't try to get his attention; it felt like she couldn't move, like she shouldn't move- like the image before her would disappear if she did.

Just like it always did.

Sebastian turned and opened his eyes, looking over to where Myra had previously been lying.

Or at least, he started to look in that direction before his eyes caught sight of her standing where she was.

But Myra was too busy looking at the bloodied mess of his shirt to realize that he had seen her.

His fingers just barely masked where something, or someone had cut down across his left shoulder. A good portion of his shirt was discolored from where blood had flooded out of the injury, spilling down the length of his torso almost. In order to draw out that much blood, whoever or whatever was responsible for the injury had to have sliced in deep.

... And it was that thought that pulled out the memories Myra had forgotten about.

She had found Sebastian after all, just like Kidman had told her to.

Just... not in the way she wanted to.

Not in the form she needed to be in.

 _"Lily is our daughter, Myra!"_

The words rang fresh inside of her head once more and Myra remembered them as they were in the moment, in the heat of battle.

They had felt like a physical blow, raw and powerful despite the unforgiving situation- but the words had been powerful enough to make the Matriarch itself recoil from them. At the time, and even now, Myra wasn't certain why that was all it took to cut down the Matriarch, but she didn't question it. In that brief second of recoil, she had felt herself in the seat of control for once. And while she hadn't been able to see details, while she couldn't make out exactly who he was, somehow she still knew full and well who was in front of her.

That hint of light, that brief touch of freedom had only lasted a second, but it had given Myra exactly what she needed to know.

It allowed her to find out what the Matriarch's weakness was.

The Matriarch was obsessed; it was a manifested obsession.

But now Myra had something- no, _someone_ \- who could deter her from it.

In that light of realization, Myra had forced up every memory she could dig out after three years of forced forgetting and denial. In that moment, she had forced herself to remember; she had forced herself to live in each memory, to play each one out scene by scene, word by word so she had something solid to hold on to. So she had some kind of weapon, some kind of ammo to fight back with.

 _"This is Sergeant Detective Sebastian Castellanos, he'll be-"_

 _Myra brushed the Police Chief out of her way and approached the introduced man on her own, quick to offer her hand out to him. She had already toured the KCPD office on her own and had picked up rather quickly on how the information and the workflow moved around the department. She had already learned the names of the officers working the front desk, as well as those on dispatch. Not to mention, she had done her research on the department, as well as research on the Sergeant Detective in front of her._

 _She hardly needed someone to help her make introductions._

 _She could handle them well enough on her own._

 _"Myra Hanson," she introduced, catching eyes with the supposed Lead Detective._

 _She had seen pictures of him in the newspapers and on TV- as well as a few during her internet research. But seeing the man in person was certainly different from seeing him in still frame. The Sergeant Detective was tall, which was something pictures could be misleading about; but the man easily carried a foot over her in height, and possibly two in width across the shoulders and chest._

 _Myra did well to keep her eyes focused on his face, implementing it to memory and picking out things that pictures couldn't quite depict. Dark-brown, almost black hair was smoothed back for the most part, showing off his somewhat-chiseled, somewhat-rough face; a feature she thought had been caused by bad lighting in most of his pictures- it was by no means an insult however. There was the growing appearance of a five o'clock shadow coming in along the cut of his jaw, which either implied laziness or a solid work ethic; only time would give her the correct answer._

 _If the man was at all surprised by her forwardness, he didn't show it._

 _Perhaps he had done his own investigation on her as well._

 _"The new Investigator," Sebastian replied, as he took her outstretched hand._

 _"For now," Myra remarked, catching what looked to be a subtle twitch on the corners of his lips. "I was told your department needed some help around here."_

 _"That's the shorthand of it."_

Their first meeting didn't exactly go as planned.

Considering that about an hour after introductions, Myra referred to him as an asshole when she was on the phone with her sister. She had been unaware that he was outside on a smoke break when she had stepped out the same door to take the phone call. And of course, Sebastian didn't bother to announce himself even once throughout the whole phone conversation.

Sebastian would later admit that that was when he realized he was smitten with her.

(Puppy love was what she called it.)

The ghost memories had been like acid, eating and melting away at the Matriarch's control- at its power, at its wax skin that had held her in bondage every time the monster took over.

In its weakened state, Myra had gotten enough control of her own to help rip the Matriarch apart just the same.

It had been agonizing- debilitating even.

But it had been necessary.

And the end result, despite the pain, despite the mental trauma, had been worth it.

Because for the first time in a long time, it felt like she had been cleansed; it felt like she was actually free from the Matriarch itself. Myra couldn't hear those thoughts in her head anymore, not like she had back in the Marrow.

She couldn't even _feel_ the Matriarch's presence under her skin

Right now...

Right now, all Myra could think about was Sebastian.

All she could think about was the ambush the Matriarch had sprung on him, drawn in by the sight of Lily's doll in his grasp.

Myra thought about the battle- if it was even fair to call it that.

Loose memories collected images of tossing him around like a ragdoll, of throwing him into the brick front of the building they were standing inside of right now. She could feel the weight, the force of each strike through the wax hand she had pinned on him- feeling the vibrations of his bones through the congealed material. And at the time, it had been a reward, a delight to feel such a successful strike.

But now the vibrations lingered in her chest, throbbing hollowly in her heart as it beat in time to the memory.

In absolute silence, Myra let herself take him in.

The three years between them felt more like decades, and the hell and loneliness between them was all the more apparent as she quietly catalogued all of the changes she saw in him. Myra had been watching him through lens, through pictures; she knew what he looked like even before now. But seeing him up-close like this, seeing him eye-to-eye, seeing him on the same plane of existence, Myra realized she didn't know.

She didn't know how badly things had affected him.

She didn't know how STEM had changed and corrupted him the same way it was doing to Union now- the same way it had done to Beacon.

In a sense, Sebastian was a Haunted existing outside of STEM, completely oblivious to his sense of loss conscious.

Or maybe he was aware.

Maybe he did know.

But that only made things worse.

Sebastian looked exhausted- beyond exhausted really. It looked as though he wasn't really living anymore; it looked like he was just going day-to-day on autopilot with no sense of life behind any of his actions.

It was a cultivated feeling of hate that Myra had gotten used to herself.

But... despite everything, there were still things she recognized in him.

His hair was still pushed back like it had always been- even when Myra first met him, and even after her constant complaints about how unprofessional it looked. Not that Sebastian ever listened to her about it, which she ended up being glad that he didn't. Long rides stuck in the car, lazy mornings, and late-nights spent around him cultivated the habit of her running her fingers through his hair- or gently tugging on it when he got on her nerves.

Of course, she had to be careful with the hair tugging, otherwise he would reach over and grab her hair by the bun with one hand.

(They got in a lot of fights in the car by doing that.)

The biggest difference to her, the one that stuck out the most perhaps, was the change in his skin tone. Sebastian's complexion had always been bronze and tanned, a blessing from his Hispanic genetics, and it had a habit of just getting darker every time he was out in the sun. Whenever the two of them handled outdoor crime scenes, he would always come back to the office a few shades darker than when he left.

And of course, she would come back cherry-red, skin dehydrated and itching- and always in pain.

 _"You look good in red, Investigator."_

 _"I will have you by the throat, Detective."_

 _"And you can have it if you can lift your arms that high."_

But now his skin looked pale, almost flushed and washed out.

And maybe the dim, florescent lighting in the cafe was to blame, maybe just STEM overall was to blame but... she had her own thoughts and theories on it.

"Myra."

Sebastian was the first to break the silence between them.

And Myra could see the hesitation in his eyes when he looked at her, when he said her name out loud. And there was no denying that he didn't look entirely convinced that that was who she was.

And she couldn't blame him for that.

But the sound of her name in his voice again...

Myra nodded at first, a simple confirmation to fill in the space. It felt like her throat was so tight she couldn't squeeze a word out. She wanted to, she tried to, but each attempt was met with this feeling like she had someone else's hand wrapped around her neck, compressing her throat and crippling her voice. Asides from speaking with Kidman earlier, Myra couldn't remember the last time she had actually spoken to another person, another human being since she had entered STEM.

"Sebastian," she finally spoke, finally edging his name out.

And she swore it felt like a wave of cold air rushed over her when she said it.

A cold realization that washed and chilled her down to the bone.

But it didn't stop her; it didn't freeze her in place again.

Instead it pushed her forward, pushed her towards him.

And once more, the two of them met in the middle.

Myra tucked herself against his chest, burrowing her head into his shoulder and tucking her arms underneath his; her fingers practically dug themselves into the center of his back. And it was only seconds before she felt the weight, the warmth of his arms around her, pulling her in, and anchoring her to him- just like they had before.

And for a second, she felt Union melt around them.

"Please tell me you're real," Myra whispered, half-begged into the brace of his collarbones.

"I could ask you the same thing," Sebastian replied.

And Myra felt the reality of his comment hit a little too close, a little too deep.

He had been without any form of knowledge or acknowledgement of her existence, of her status after her disappearance. For all he knew and believed, she had been dead this entire time. Meanwhile she had been aware and kept up-to-date about him; she had known about every step he took, every decision he made. She knew about his investigation into Mobius and she had prayed that he wouldn't follow in her footsteps, that he wouldn't make the same mistake she had.

But he did.

And that was why they were here now, why they were finally together again.

Mobius had torn them apart.

And now it had inadvertently brought them back together.

Myra carefully moved her fingers to Sebastian's left shoulder; she felt the tear in his shirt, she felt the cold dampness of the fabric from his own blood. She could still remember the violent strike of the attack; she could still remember the blood, the sound of him screaming. When the pad of her thumb carefully peeled back the frayed edge of his shirt, she expected to see the injury still exposed- and part of her wanted to see it, wanted to use it as a form of self-punishment for allowing it to happen.

Instead, she found the white hint of a bandage underneath his shirt, hinting that he had already patched the injury up on his own.

(Something he shouldn't have had to do.)

"I'm sorry," Myra started again, feeling as though she had worn out its meaning. "It feels like I've been in here for so long... I don't even know when I started to lose control over myself."

Despite the memories she had forced on herself, the memories she had forced herself to remember, all she could think about in this moment of reuniting was how she had left him in the first place.

How she had abandoned him when he needed her- when _they_ needed each other the most.

She had gotten so caught up in wanting to know the truth...

She had tried too hard to convince him and had gotten too frustrated when he didn't budge, when he didn't believe her- and then they started arguing, and that was their shared downfall.

She left on her own, knowing that it was the better thing to do.

And now look at where it had gotten her.

Lily was gone.

But Sebastian was back now.

And she had almost killed him.

"It's okay," Sebastian replied, one hand moving to brush through her hair once more- a therapeutic gesture for the both of them. "... I know what it's like."

She had been a monster when he saw her.

She had toyed with him, tried to kill him within seconds of encountering one another...

And he was acting like it was nothing.

Like it was all stuff he had gone through before.

It made her cling to him a little tighter.

"Kidman says you've been in here for a week."

Myra could vaguely recall Kidman informing her of that before but... words and hours were the first things to get blurred inside of STEM.

STEM made the passage of time feel different, indistinguishable almost. To Myra, the time felt longer; it felt like she had only been in here for days, weeks even. Given the state of Union, given the decay and destruction that laid crumbled around their feet, it could've easily been weeks or months just the same and she would've been none the wiser.

And all of those patients, those victims who had been in here for three years...

If any of them had survived, if any of them had had the chance to get out, life outside of STEM would be unbearable.

Even during Kidman's debriefing, the woman couldn't believe that despite everything that had happened inside of STEM, despite everything that she, Sebastian, and Joseph had gone through, the entire ordeal had only lasted half an hour.

Pulling herself away from him, if only to an arm's length, Myra moved her hands to his chest- not yet wanting to break the physical contact between them. It felt like if she did pull away, if she did let him go, he would disappear. And so would she- and she would wake up again in the Marrow to find that this whole thing had been some kind of vibrant, detailed hallucination.

Myra could feel Sebastian watching her, questioning her- but she couldn't bring herself to look back at him.

"I'm sure you have questions," she started, forcing her voice to be steady as she spoke.

She knew he did; she'd be foolish to think otherwise.

After all, why wouldn't he?

He had every right to know.

 _"You work on finding Sebastian and you let me handle the rest, okay? And just go with whatever I say, alright? You can trust me. Sebastian doesn't... he doesn't have to know everything. Not right now at least."_

Kidman's words rang quiet in her head and Myra questioned what it was that the woman had told hm. There was a plethora of things that could've been said, either in truth or in lie- and she had no knowledge of what Kidman went with.

She could trust Kidman, that much Myra knew, that much she didn't doubt.

But she still needed to brace herself for whatever questions might come at her, whether or not she knew the correct answers to them.

"Not right now," Sebastian replied instead, as he reached forward and brushed aside a loose strand of hair from her face, gently tucking it behind one ear. "We can... we can talk about things later."

Myra tried not to let the breath of relief that escaped her be noticeable.

Good.

She didn't want to talk about it either.

Not right now at least, now while she was still trying to work things out in her head.

Sebastian deserved answers just as much as anyone, more than anyone really- but the answers she had would not help him.

Myra felt his hands move to cup her face again, and again she reached up and covered them with her own, sliding her fingers between his. His skin was warm against hers; he was always warm- it was a perk of being hot-natured, a perk for her anyways. "How did you know it was me?" she whispered, as she finally looked up to meet his eyes- and she felt that hint of weakness in her legs when she did.

Even in the darkness of that ambush, Myra could still remember him saying her name.

It had to have been out of disbelief, but at the same time, he had sounded so confident when he said it.

Somehow even in that moment, as strange as things were, Sebastian still knew who she was; he still knew how to recognize her.

She didn't know how though.

As the Matriarch, it always felt like she was engulfed in this mass of flesh and wax, it always felt like she was larger, more monstrous; she had to be, given she had that guardian, that Watcher following her around, obeying her every command. Every one of her senses was gone when she was in that form though. She didn't know how she looked, she didn't know what the Matriarch looked like- she was always blinded by its presence.

But something must've stuck out.

"Your earrings," Sebastian answered.

The answer was almost comical it felt as Myra moved to touch one of the pearl earrings in response. The rather sizeable earrings were the only noticeable piece of jewelry that she owned and wore- and they had been quick to become a part of her trademark attire.

So even as a monster, even as the Matriarch, they were still visible?

Why?

They must've played some part in her design but... what good did they do?

"You were always wearing them," Sebastian continued, "and it turns out, you still do."

Was that it then?

Did the Matriarch want everyone to know that it was still her underneath all of the wax and excess skin? But if someone had never met her before, they would have no idea who she was or what significant the earrings brought. The only people who ever saw her with them and could recognize her by them would be Mobius personnel, and Sebastian.

"Why wouldn't I?" Myra replied, as she continued to fiddle with the earring. "You gave them to me after Lily was born..."

Of course.

Lily would recognize the earrings as well.

For just a brief second, Myra had forgotten why she was in STEM in the first place.

She had forgotten why she had willingly stepped into this machine.

Her daughter-

No, _their_ daughter.

"Lily..."

"I'm looking," Sebastian started, assuring her of something she already knew.

Of course he was- Lily was the only reason he was here to begin with.

Lily was the only reason that Mobius went looking for him to begin with.

Because Sebastian was the only person who could do it, he was the only one who could find her.

He was the only one who _cared_ enough to find her.

"Have you seen her?" Myra questioned.

"Not in person, no. I've only seen her in these residual memory things that STEM's holding on to," he answered. "I don't have a timetable on it but I know Lily was in this building recently. Someone or something was chasing her and she escaped them by crawling through a maintenance hole behind the counter; she got into the back room which was locked, which was also where I found her doll."

Myra clung to the doll a little harder at the words.

She knew Lily was getting chased in here and it wasn't just by the Matriarch.

She knew there was another culprit in STEM who wanted their daughter.

"Lily managed to escape out the back window and into the parking lot without being detected. I don't know where she went from there though. She somehow managed to backtrack into the city but I haven't had a chance to follow the signal again." There was a subtle pause, a break in the once-normal protocol conversation between them, before Sebastian continued. "I barely got across the lot before you showed up."

Myra flinched at the memories.

She could still recall in vivid detail the motions that the Matriarch went through to track him down, to corner him here of all places.

Simply by using Lily as a target as well.

At the very least, it meant that they were in the right place- they still had a chance at finding her.

They didn't have a choice though; they _had_ to get to her first.

"Did you see who was chasing her?" Myra asked.

"No, but I've got an idea who it is," Sebastian replied- and the tone of his voice was enough of an answer on it's own; it was enough to tell her that she wasn't going to like the answer. "It's this weird flamboyant asshole who takes himself to be some kind of artist of some sort. I saw him kill someone and freeze their body with his camera as soon as I got in here. He killed one of the Mobius agents too- the lead Security guy, Baker or something, turned him into some kind of exhibition art piece. No idea who the guy is just yet, but I can tell you he has a significant amount of influence inside of STEM- more so than normal."

An odd bit of information Myra was surprised that Sebastian knew about.

While it was common knowledge in research that patients inside of STEM could influence the world alongside a working Core, the amount of influence was usually small and minimal. The influence given wouldn't be enough to save someone in a situation like this against the Lost- or against whatever kind of psychopath they were apparently dealing with.

Kidman's reports detailed multiple situations where she, Sebastian, and Joseph were reunited despite the odds against them, and Kidman was adamant that it was their combined desperation to find each other again that influenced each reunion. Together they had been able to swing STEM into their favor- even if it was for just a short amount of time.

Still, to know that someone inside of STEM was holding a power of influence over the system, perhaps because of the lack of a Core, was troubling.

Especially given that this person was using it to kill.

"The fucker knifed me in the shoulder too."

Myra felt a mix of confusion and anger now.

She had no idea who it was that Sebastian was describing.

She only knew of one person who would be chasing after Lily, and he wasn't a self-proclaimed artist- not in a physical sense anyways. And if that was the case, then they now had to deal with the risk of two psychopaths going after Lily.

And at the same time, whoever or whatever this person was, he had intentionally hurt Sebastian- and given that this man had already killed before, there wasn't anything stopping him from trying to kill Sebastian the next time they crossed paths.

Except for her.

"There's a man in here with us by the name of Theodore Wallace; he calls himself Father Theodore," Myra started.

Sebastian had insisted on not wanting answers, not yet at least, but this was something that he needed to know.

Especially if there was another psychopath in here going after Lily.

"It's a long story that I will tell you in due time but... just know that I've been trying to get Lily out of here, I've been trying to get her away from Mobius," she continued. "I've had this evacuation plan worked out for months and Theodore was going to help me get Lily out of STEM; he had a plan of getting rid of Mobius for good. With his help, I was able to find the right time to enter STEM and strike, but he- he fucking back stabbed me right when we found Lily. He never wanted to help, all he wanted was get rid of Mobius and take STEM for himself- and utilize it in some kind of world domination scheme."

The more she talked about the man, the angrier she got.

Theodore was the only reason Myra trusted the Matriarch with Lily- and that was only through desperate trust.

The Matriarch could protect Lily from him, that was it.

"Theodore underestimated how smart Lily was though and she managed to escape before he could use her- but she got herself lost in STEM while doing so. The whole reason STEM is collapsing right now is because of him. He put all of us at risk and trapped us in here because he wanted to start an arms race," Myra finished, as she moved one hand to tangle in Sebastian's shirt once more. "So now we have two psychopaths in here who are trying to get Lily- and I count as a third."

"Myra-"

"I've been all over Union looking for her but this place... STEM is changing me. It wasn't apparent at first or maybe I just never noticed it, but it didn't take long before I was completely powerless to it," she interrupted. "It latched on to me like a parasite and it just kept growing. It knows I want to find Lily; it knows that she's my only focus right now- and it's been using that obsession against me with every step. I can't control myself when I'm that thing and I can't stop it from making me think that STEM is the best place for us."

Myra stopped to catch her breath, to focus on the weighed presence of Sebastian's hands on her shoulders now.

"I haven't been myself in a long time. Not until now, not until I found you."

Despite her initial doubts, her initial pessimism, Sebastian seemed to understand.

"I'll get you through this," he assured, before he pulled her back in against him. "We'll both get through this and we'll get Lily back."

It sounded so hopeful, so naive, but Myra desperately wanted to believe it.

They were both starting over.

They were both back at square one in terms of everything.

But they could do it

Myra knew how STEM worked from the outside, she knew how things were affected on the inside.

Sebastian knew how to survive STEM, he knew how to kill it.

And it was their daughter who was at the heart of all of this.

All they had to do was find Lily.

Even if it meant killing everything and everyone that stood in their way.


End file.
